Apparatus and method for growth of a thin film
AssigneeASM America, Inc.
InventorIvo Raaijmakers
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Abstract
An improved apparatus and method for substrate layer deposition in which substrate layers are grown by carrier gas delivery of sequential pulses of reactants to the substrate surface. At least one of the reactants comprises excited species, e.g., radicals. In a specific embodiment, the apparatus of this invention provides sequential repeated pulses of reactants in a flow of carrier gas for reaction at a substrate surface. The reactant pulses are delivered with sufficient intervening delay times to minimize undesirable reaction between reactants in adjacent pulses in the gas phase or undesired uncontrolled reactions on the substrate surface.
Claims15
An apparatus for growing a thin film which comprises:
- (a) a reaction chamber;
- (b) a substrate mounted in the reaction chamber;
- (c) a gas inlet system for establishing a carrier gas flow into the reaction chamber and for introducing two or more reactants into the carrier gas flow upstream of the substrate, wherein at least one of the reactants comprises excited species and wherein the gas inlet system comprises a first gas inlet directly into the reaction chamber for providing a first reactant to the reaction chamber and a second gas inlet directly into the reaction chamber for providing excited species to the reaction chamber;
- (d) a gas outlet;
- and
- (e) controls set to alternately and sequentially introduce separated pulses of the reactants into the carrier gas flow such that a desired film is deposited by atomic layer deposition on the substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.